Walking a Fine Line

In this episode, I really had to make some difficult choices around stringing for the drawers. In a lot of cases, it pays to do some mock-ups and experimentation to really come up with the best solution to any woodworking problem. In this episode, I put the finishing touches on the drawers, fix my little snafu from episode two, and get the final finish and hardware in place. In the end, this project was far more work than I expected it to be. I always seem to introduce either changes in direction (via mistakes) or additional complexity that seems simple in the design phase, but a lot more effort in practice. But that's what makes woodworking fun and challenging, and why I keep coming back for more!

When doves make me cry

It’s no secret that I like to incorporate lots of curved lines into my pieces. Generally I start with a concept and decide where I want to bend some lines to add visual appeal, and most of the time I have little concern for how much more complex it will make the project. As a result, I almost always underestimate the extra work involved in adding even simple curvature. So of course this piece is no different. In my mind, dovetailing into the sides of a curved drawer front is really no different than a flat drawer front.

But especially with a bow-front drawer, this is not the case at all. There are angles that need to be cut in the top and the shoulders of each tail that then need to fit into a similar angle in the dovetail sockets. So this episode focuses not on how to hand cut dovetail drawers, but more how the process differs for bow-front drawers. 

Making Lemonade

Moving along in my hanging wall cabinet project, I was really starting to feel like I was getting my groove back. In this next phase of the project, however, I needed to tackle some tricky joinery with some fairly thin stock. While this project originally seemed like a good way to ease myself back into woodworking game shape, I quickly realized the joinery I decided to use - stopped dados and sliding dovetails - wasn't going to be quite a easy as I hoped.

As it turns out, my biggest challenge actually had little to do with experience, technique, or materials. But rather a simple design flaw in a tool that can be found in almost every shop. In this episode, you can find out where I ran into trouble and how I plan to make lemons out of lemonade.

How Bois got his groove back...

Sometimes, despite your best intentions you just can't always find time to get into the shop. I hear it all the time from fellow woodworkers, but I was sure I was immune to this terrible condition. Well it finally happened to me - for about the last nine months. But I was not discouraged. I believe that in many ways woodworking is just like riding a bike - you hop back on and it all comes back. But when it comes to more refined techniques and skills, these are things you need to hone on a regular basis to stay in shape.

So with a big project looming in the future, I was a bit hesitant to just jump right back on the saddle. I decided to design something that would help me hone those skills again with a lower risk factor, while also resulting in something I could be proud of and share. You know, something to help me get my groove back. So this next episode is what I call my "groove" project. And as I'm finding out, this will take on a double meaning as you get into a few episodes. If nothing else, I hope I can inspire some folks who have been arm-chair quarterbacking to get back in the game. Or back it the saddle. Or whatever metaphor works best for you. Enjoy!

The definitive shop tour

It's been a long time since my last post, and I've gotten a lot of emails and questions about my time off. Well sometimes life just happens. I have a job now that requires quite a bit more travel and free time has gotten tougher to come by. However, I did find the time to work on one of the most requested "projects" I've gotten over the past few years - a shop tour.

I'm at the stage now with the shop where I have the tools and the workflow in place to accommodate my design and construction methods. I have a few more tweaks I want to make here and there, and a shop is never truly done. But for the most part I'm at a point in the evolution of my shop that I'm tuning rather than filling major gaps.

I have also completed the design and dimensioning phases of my next project, which will be my next series. In my time off I also spent some time and money to upgrade my entire video and audio setup as well as my production software. As a result, you should see a much higher quality of production in this new series (sadly the shop tour was done entirely on my old equipment).

If you have any questions about my shop setup, rationale for various decisions, or feedback on any of the tools and processes, just shoot me a comment. As always I'm happy to respond (at least when I'm not at 40,000 feet).


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A photo finish

I think I made this project far more complicated than it needed to be. But despite my mistakes and design changes, I think I actually ended up with something at least presentable in the end. I built this piece from the beginning to show at The Furniture Project, which Eli Cleveland and crew put on every year to promote hand crafted furniture to the public. Hopefully I did the show (and an unsuspecting walnut tree) proud.

Sadly, this marks the end of this project, but have a few concepts already in mind for the next one. In the meantime, I'm thinking a proper shop tour is long overdue, and it might be the perfect intermission to the next big thing.

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A game of recovery

You might recall that I’m building this entire live-edge hall table completely on the fly. This all started with the live-edge top dictating the exact size and shape of the carcass. While this project seemed simple enough, having no drawings, model, or even sketch started to become a limitation. I started to make some fairly dumb mistakes that I would have easily avoided by looking at a 3D model or even a sketch. But woodworking is a game of recovery and agility, and fortunately I didn’t screw anything up so badly that I had to start over. I retrospect, deciding to introduce drawers into the plan this late in the game probably didn’t set me up for success!


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A simple solution to complex joinery

With the aprons veneered, its time to start thinking about my joinery. The trick to this step is twofold. I have a curved front apron, which would be almost impossible to clamp into my tenon jig, or even a vice to cut tenons by hand. And secondly, the legs meet the aprons at roughly a 5 degree angle, adding to the complexity. But as is often the case when I face this kind of challenge, the solution is a green one.



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Stacking the odds

In true Nakashima style, I wanted the live edge top for my hall table to dictate the size and shape of the carcass that supports is. Since the front of the table top follows a gentle curved shape, I want to match the same curve to the front apron of the table.

In my curved front writing desk project from a few years back, I used a bent lamination technique to create the curved drawer fronts. The technique works great if you don't need to cut any big joinery into the components. But to created the crescent front for this hall table, I need to build an apron that can be tenoned into the legs. Unfortunately, the big weakness of bent lamination is that if you shape or cut the piece and sever too many glue joints, you can weaken the bond.

So for this project, I decided to use a stacked lamination technique where I built up the apron structure out of four pieces of stacked maple which I will ultimately veneer with cherry to match the rest of the carcass. I originally thought I was using soft maple, but it turns out I was working with rock maple, so there was a little more elbow grease involved than I had expected. But I'm sure going to have one strong front apron!




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The Tuscan Design Method

In the first two episodes of this build, I worked on getting my live-edge table top shaped. This is actually the reverse process from how I typically work. Usually I start with the carcass and then move on to the top, but in this case the irregular shape of the top needs to actually inform the shape of the base. But in order to be able to lay out my aprons, I must have my legs designed and built first. In this episode, I'll walk you through my organic design process for creating what ultimately became tusk-shaped legs. Then in the next set of episodes, I'll get into the actual layout and construction of the base and joinery - probably my favorite part of any project. And stay tuned, because this project is going to have a fun little twist in the design of the carcass itself.



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Slab happy

I met with a local sawyer over the summer, and while I was at his shop, he uncovered his special stash of walnut slabs. He had almost a complete flitch of 8/4 walnut slabs, and I couldn't leave for home without at least one board. I had no idea what I was going to use it for, but it was priced right and I happily made room in my shop to store it until I had a use for it.

Well, I finally decided it was time to turn it into furniture. I had a rough idea in my mind that it would become a hall table, but I decided to use the shape and size of the slab itself to dictate the design, rather than the other way around. So this project is going to be designed as I go, and I already have a few fun ideas of some twists I can incorporate into the piece.

This first episode is all about stock prep. And with a slab almost 22" wide, my power planer and jointer are of no use. So I'll be rolling up my sleeves and doing a lot of hand tool work to start. Which is perfect because it just started getting cold in my shop!


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You say molding, I say moulding

In almost every project I do, I usually feel like I'm coming down the home stretch only to realize that there are a whole bunch of small steps left. Each individual step is a fairly straightforward process but when put together, there's actually more work left than I'd really anticipated. This screen door project was no different. I had the door glued up and seemingly almost done, but the little details like chamfering the edges, cutting the hinge mortises, milling the mouldings, and applying the finish really added up. I also needed to apply at least four coats of finish since this is an outodoor project, which also added a good week of time to the build.

All that being said, its the small things that can really make or break a project. This is the point where it's so tempting to cut a few corners here and there, but usually where you can separate a good project from a great project in the final outcome. After the finish cures, I'll finally be ready to fit in the screening and hang my door and be happy knowing I did all the little things right.



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Taking shape

With just a few odds and ends left, this episode features the glue-up of both the case and the top for the jewelry box project. Unlike many project though, the angles in the design require that I hold off on a few final cuts and hardware fitting until after the glue up. But you will finally get a good idea after this episode what the final product will look like.


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Another spline day in the shop

Having completed the box joinery on my necklace case project, it's time to move on to the lid or top.  The client has also asked for a mitered top, rather than rail and stile in order to keep the same clean lines as the case itself.  I had several joinery options here, I could have done a mitered half lap, a saddle joint, or splines along the miter joint, or across.  I ultimately decided to do splines across the glue joint mainly because I have a jig already that I use often times for making small mitered boxes.  Once again, this keeps the exposed joinery to a minimum, but leaves a fairly strong joint. 


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Lock and Load

The further into the chest of drawers project I get, the more I realize how much the stepped front complicates construction.  From a design perspective, it didn't seem like this build would be dramatically different than a standard chest, but boy was I wrong.  In this episode, I go through the process of fitting the lower drawer blades, or dividers.  Normally, you would just need one blade between each drawer, but the steps in the front face required me to double these up.  My choice of sliding dovetails also created an additional complication in both positioning the dovetails, and also marking the sockets from the tails.  But with a little creativity, and perhaps luck, I managed to complete the task without any major issues.




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Just checking in

Sorry for the gap in posts and video here. I do have two more weeks of video to edit, I've just been busy with the holidays starting. I also ran into a problem with the cut list in the magazine article that has set me back a bit (if you're building the bench, read this!). It turns out the length specified for the tool tray bottoms is an inch too short in the cut list (I verified this with the sketchup drawing). I had to modify my tool tray lengths because my bench is shorter in length (72") but I applied the same 2" differential between the sides and bottoms that the cut list describes. The difference should be only 1". So I had to re-mill my bottoms but was out of 4/4 stock. I ended up laminating QS pieces of 8/4 stock together, so in the end my box bottoms will mirror the bench top more so there is a silver lining here. But laminating all that stock and re-milling cost me a good two days on the project. But I still hope to finish up next weekend, and hopefully get caught up on video. I've talked to several people now who are planning to build this bench, so hopefully this blog will be a helpful resource for all of you.

Finally fitting some joints!

I have a 3 week backlog of video, but managed to get week 5 knocked out. In this episode, I finish fitting the wedged tenons, glue up the base side assemblies, and knock in my tenon wedges. This is also the first episode where I make use of the bandsaw (nice plug for Rikon here). Week 5 1/2 and 6 will both focus on the construction and fitting of the dovetail lap joints, at which point I will have a working bench ready for vises and dog holes. Enjoy, and look for more video probably later this week.